Danone’s goal for 2025 is for every piece of its packaging to be reusable, recyclable, or compostable, up from 77 per cent of its packaging in 2017.

Evian has also pledged to make all its plastic bottles from 100 per cent recycled plastic by 2025, up from 25 per cent at present.

The 3R Initiative plans to create tradable ‘plastic credits’ to support recycling projects in developing nations, on similar lines to carbon offsets, although it aims to be more rigorous in setting rules for the credits.

Projects that support recycling in developing countries will be vetted and registered and then issued with credits, according to the amount of plastic recovered or reused.

These could then be bought by large firms with goals like using 100 per cent recycled plastic in their products.

The money paid for the credits would go to the plastic projects, for example to improve conditions and pay for poor waste pickers and recyclers in Brazil.

Julianne Baroody, Director and Verra, which will craft new standards fro measuring plastic waste, said: “We wanted to create a mechanism that could incentivise new and expanded collection and recycling of waste plastic.”